How Will AI Transform Infrastructure Management?

Rapid advancements in Software Defined Infrastructure and Cloud Computing have rendered IT infrastructure flexible, intangible, and on-demand. However, infrastructure is not yet intelligent and relies on human intervention to understand the correlation between the different IT elements, recognize data trends and take appropriate action. Artificial Intelligence can bring about a transformation in this arena, and eventually initiate infrastructure that is not only self-driven but also flawless.

The Impact of AI on Infrastructure Management Services

The disruption caused by AI seeping into every aspect of digital services is quite significant and can have far reaching implications for software development and IT support service providers. Let's look at how it is affecting IT infrastructure management services in particular -

Demand for Greater Resources

The biggest impact of AI on infrastructure management service providers is most likely to be the demand for much greater resources. AI systems need massive computing power; to provide this, organizations seek cloud computing services or servers that have access to GPUs and CPUs with multiple cores. AI training, or machine learning mandates vast amounts of data - this translates into increased need for storage, in addition to computing capacity. Consequently, there will be a need for an abundance of networking resources to support them.

Necessity for AI in Security

Software security products tend to churn out mountains of data that is logged, so, it's nearly impossible for human agents to analyze by themselves. We are now seeing the emergence of innovative analytics for security, user, and entity behavior, threat intelligence and so on, that leverage machine learning and complex algorithms to recognize, avert, and diminish attacks that would have evaded discovery otherwise. Of course, black hat coders could also integrate AI in their programs and make AI-based attacks common. However, that situation is still reasonably far off.

Intelligent Monitoring

Artificial intelligence can also be used to keep track of networks and other interface. There are platforms that offer AI-based full stack monitoring, integrating machine learning with big data analysis to offer smart monitoring capability to IT service providers. Dynatrace, Spunk, and SumoLogic are platforms with monitoring capabilities.

Automated Support

Siri, Alexa, and Cortana - these are smart assistants most of us have not just grown accustomed to - we always want these around us. We have become pretty comfortable with chatbots on various sites answering our queries. AI could soon be introduced into helpdesks. Round the clock support provision is a critical need of IT infrastructure management services; with automated support, IT support professionals can be relieved of their burden of being available 24/7 yet serve their organizations efficiently. IBM Watson, and Amelia from IPSoft are examples of software that have limited helpdesk functionality.

Intelligent Storage

Industry experts anticipate that AI is going to revolutionize storage management. Through machine learning, systems could learn I-O patterns and the life cycles of data. This could enable storage solutions to make intelligent decisions about optimizing storage and tiered storage. Who knows? Maybe one day, AI may be able to warn when the storage solution is about to break down, providing sufficient time to users to take backups, and make changes in the hardware if necessary.

AI-defined Infrastructure Management

Though the technology is still evolving, some industry experts opine that in the future, AI will be capable of actively managing and maintaining the entire system, and not just securing, managing, and resolving queries about networks. This is the highest level of automation in infrastructure management, and called AI driven or AI defined infrastructure management. Software defined data centers and certain software tools are in the process of developing fundamental technology that may turn this vision into reality, even as you read this article.

Possible Capabilities of AI-defined Infrastructure Management

With the vast repository of data in the form of user complaints or requests, system logs and so on, the system can easily self-learn relationships, discern patterns, and take action. AI-defined Infrastructure will be able to do the following -

01. Plan

Study the demand trends, predict the requirements of infrastructure, and plan for them

Match the demands with the available infrastructure components

02. Build

Deploy resources as and when required

Withdraw resources when the requirement is fulfilled or not required

Set up the different elements of the infrastructure

03. Operate

Study data trends indicating system behavior and build a quality parameter prototype for the same. Since AI self-learns and builds its own prototype, the need for defining rules and setting ceilings does not arise

Achieve optimal quality factors like scalability, storage and availability using the said prototype

Identify abnormalities by understanding what deviant system behavior is; examples of anomalies could be fraud points, detecting intrusions, and protecting infrastructure from misuse and down time

Foretell software failure before human agents, thanks to the system's capability of reviewing and understanding the log files all over the IT infrastructure

Detect cyber-attacks and take immediate action to mitigate risk to prevent damage to the system

Take proactive action based on one or multiple infrastructure components, and to take independent action to facilitate infrastructure that is error-free

Reducing IT infrastructure overheads through utilization of components that will consume least resources

The Future for Enterprises

AI- defined or enabled IT infrastructure is a building block for the AI-enabled enterprise. Established businesses are also facing a plethora of challenges - and the biggest threats are giant corporations like Amazon, Facebook and Google. These companies are invading our personal space, homes and the market share of other established companies.

Take Amazon for example: they have their own delivery system in place, which means they will not use other delivery services like UPS or FedEx. These giants already have access to huge amounts of data: about its own customers (purchase history, preferences, average amount spent in a month), potential users, and of course the financial resources, to edge out the middlemen and become end-to-end providers of goods. For businesses to counter these threats, AI will be the key.

At Outsource2india, we believe that effective infrastructure management is essential for an organization to operate at maximum efficiency and achieve optimal productivity. We believe that AI will play a greater role in this process soon, and our teams are already equipping themselves with the requisite skills for incorporating AI in Infrastructure Management.

By outsourcing your infrastructure management services to us, you will get the advantage of cost-effective, 24/7 remote monitoring from a team of highly-qualified engineers and technical staff proficient in different technologies and platforms. Our software development services will help you enhance your employee productivity, reduce down time, make your systems more secure, and allow you round the clock access to your IT components.

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